Category Archives: Social impact bonds

By Cindy Chin, CLC Advisors, LLC CEO

Freedom Tower, One World Trade CenterNew York City

On my walk home in the rain from the Social Impact Exchange Conference about scaling impact in cities and a room of wealth and affluence, I encountered this view of Freedom Tower at One World Trade Center. It afforded more than the memory of what occurred on 911, but what it takes to rebuild and how it can happen – collaboration amongst cities, governments, people, country, philanthropy, and the private sector.

In public school education in the United States where math and English are the anchors in education strategy, the arts and culture are set aside against a limited amount of resources and priorities. In an increasingly globalized world, that leaves behind many Americans in a conflicting identity crises of a swirling melting pot. Without a platform or an economic market in the education, philanthropy, or government involvement in the arts and culture, the risk is rising conflicts of the freedoms of expression. Technology alone will not be the solution. Communication, expression of voice or thought, is the key to enable widespread systematic change.

This one building, one of a few, represents how America can rebuild itself after tragedy, catastrophe, setbacks, and failures. Its lessons will continue to teach well into the future for generations to come. The arts and culture helps heal the human condition in tragedies and crises. Then what must remain is hope.

“May the raindrops fall lightly on your brow. May the soft winds freshen your spirit. May the sunshine brighten your heart. May the burdens of the day rest lightly upon you, and may God enfold you in the mantle of His love.” – Irish blessing

This morning at the CGI America 2013 opening plenary, the formal announcement of Goldman Sach’s first Social Impact Bond (SIB) for an early childhood preschool program in the state of Utah was made. Here were former President Clinton’s remarks on that announcement and the significance of social impact bonds.

“The first Social Impact Bond (SIB) done in the US for early childhood development. These bonds, I believe, are going to be a very important part of our future as state and local governments and the federal government grapple with the challenges of their budgets. Finding the way to get private sector capital into solve public problems with the promise of a return and the risk of no return if the strategy doesn’t work holds REAL potential, particularly in this area. We know that about 85% of the infrastructure of the brain fills out before a child ever gets to kindergarten. We also know, and this is good news for people like me, that you can form new neural networks in your brain when you’re in your late 60’s, early 70’s. But you still stand after all these years on the foundation established in early childhood.

Of all the things in this year’s budget that was in the President’s State of the Union address that I was most excited about was a relatively small item to make US$100 MM down payment on a massive scientific project to map the human brain. Based on what we now know, I am confident that when it is finished, it will confirm the imperative of trying to bring Americans to the same starting line by doing more in early childhood development.” – Bill Clinton at CGI America 2013, June 13, 2013

Ethos: the distinguishing character, sentiment, moral nature, or guiding beliefs of a person, group, or institution.

Our ethos at CLC Advisors is the exchange of ideas through art, film, music or dance so that the communication gap does not exist between international relations, business, or emerging markets. Coca-Cola’s Small World vending machine achieved that in Indian-Pakistani relationship during the recent launch that was captured in a short video and widely spread over YouTube. It is a illustration of the effect of how the combination of the arts can cross borders, grow or innovate brand recognition and sales in an industry sector, measure the neuroscience in human receptivity to brands, and create new global ecosystems.

From the science of understanding the human mind and condition to how a individual perceives information, consumes material goods, to purchasing decisions affecting economic markets, models creating and shaping developing markets, there are tipping points that exist in which points of social change can be directly measured and quantified. With these points, changes in philanthropic giving and new capitalist models are created by incorporating salient data points from both public and private sectors. By observing the growing shift in market share from the for-profit sector into the not-for-profit sector, social impact and financial products such as social impact bonds will continue to grow and open without borders in the impact investing sector where there is no other market for philanthropy.